too president's address. 



W. S. Macleay's views had apparently, not profouudly changed up to the 

 time that Huxley said tarewell to liim in Sydney, in Jlay, 1850. Huxley's seconii 

 letter to Macleay, the only one which has come down to us, was written on Novem- 

 ber 9th, 1851, just a year after the "Rattlesnake" was paid off, after her return to 

 England. In this, Huxley writes : "1 am every day becoming more and mors 

 certain that you were on the right track thii-ty years ago in your views of the 

 order and symmetry to be traced in the true natural system." These were not 

 empty words merely intended to please. The reference to "thirty years ago," 

 signities 1821, the year in which the second part of the Horae Entomologicae was 

 published. The extract quoted reveals the fact that Huxley had read the book, 

 possibly on the homeward voyage, as he had an absorbing source of interest, apart 

 from science, to claim his attention during his brief periodical visits to Sydney. 

 Macleay had some spare copies of his book, and probably gave one to Huxley, 

 perhaps as a parting gift. Moreover, in 1851, Huxley could write as he did. be- 

 cause, though he may have given up the "Pentateuehal cosmogony," he could still 

 say, at this time : "But my mind was unbiassed in respect of any doctrine which 

 presented itself, if it professed to be based on purely philosophical and scientific 

 rea.soning." When the letter was written, Huxley was still an, Assistant-Surgeon 

 in the Navy, on leave, in order to prepare bis scientific work for publication. 

 His future prospects were very uncertain; and, so early in his career, he had not 

 as yet been brought into serious contact with the Species-question. "My last 

 letter," he says, "is, I am afraid, nine or ten months old, but here in England, the 

 fighting and scratching to keep your place in the crowd exclude almost all other 

 thoughts. When I last wrote, I was but on the edge of the crush at the pit-door 

 of this great fools' theatre — now I have worked my way into it and through it, 



and am, I hope, not far from the check-takers In the meanwhile, 



I have not been idle, as I hope to show you by the various papers enclosed with 

 this." It was after this, but before the publication of the "Origin," that, as his 

 biographer says, he took up "a thoroughly agnostic attitude with regard to the 

 species-question, for he could not accept the creational theory, yet sought in vain 

 among the transmutationists for any cause adequate to produce transmutation." 

 Or, in his own words, "I imagine that most of those of my contemporaries who 

 thought seriously about the matter, were very much in my own state of mind — in- 

 clined to say to both Mosaists and Evolutionists, "a plague on both your houses!" 

 and disposed to turn aside from an interminable and apparently fruitless discus- 

 sion, tu labour in the fertile fields of ascertainable fact" [Life and Letters.] 



It is a matter of history that Darwin's "Origin" made no favourable appeal 

 for consideration as a working-hypothesis for the solution of scientific problems, 

 either to Agassiz or to W. S. Macleay. not to speak of many others; and merely 

 presented itself as a menace to their religious beliefs. But how few there were, 

 who merely from a perusal of the book, without, or even witli. verbal or epistolary 

 explanations from the author, were ready to accept it at its face-value? 



It is not surprising, therefore, that the receipt of a copy of Darwin's "Origin" 

 sent by Mrs. Lowe, with a request for an expression of his opinion about it, 

 should furnish W . S . Macleay with an opportunity only for a theological discus- 

 sion. In his repjy to Robert Lowe, he says [May. ]8()0] : "It is lucky for me 

 therefore, that both yon and Airs. Lowe have given me the subject of this letter 

 im asking me for my opinion of Darwin's book. To me, now on the verge of 

 the tomb, I must confess the subject of it is more interesting than either the ex- 



